


Bus Crash Blues

by DestinyFreeReally



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-11 08:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20543120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyFreeReally/pseuds/DestinyFreeReally
Summary: The bus crashes, Logan thinks Veronica's on the bus. Feelings ensue. (I know we've all read this fic but I just wanted to write something short and almost-canon that i could give a happy ending to)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty much 100% unedited, because anything i look at for two seconds to edit lately i never end up posting. see: unupdated fics. i'm trying!

Logan tried to remember why he even bothered showing up to class. Half his friends, or his not-friends, were out on the trip, and the geography lesson was really starting to make his eyes glaze over. He  _ should’ve _ went back to the Neptune Grand, got a little loaded and tried out the hot tub. He sighed, looking around the classroom. He definitely played this hand wrong; school felt like a waste without anyone around to trade glares.    
  
At the sudden burst of the fire alarm, Logan jumped with a little hope. Even if it  _ was _ another Neptune-High-classic bomb scare, at least he’d get a little walk in the fresh air and a break from Mrs. Decker’s droning.    
  
“Okay, you guys know the drill,” the teacher marched their class down the hall and out the building, shushing kids who were joking around and critiquing their idea of a straight line.    
  
“Saved by the bell, huh,” Logan smiled to himself as Mrs. Decker shushed him, too, ushering the class into the courtyard.    
  
“Attention students,” Mr. Clemmons’ voice crackled through the ancient PA system, and Logan settled in. Maybe it really was another bomb scare. “At this time, we’d like to inform you that at the urging of the Balboa Sheriff’s department, all classes will be dismissed for the rest of the day, and we will have an emergency early dismissal of all students and staff. No afterschool activities will take place on campus this afternoon, and we’ve notified your parents of the schedule changes.” Clemmons cleared his throat at the roar of reactions to an early dismissal.    
  
Logan wondered what the emergency was. “The building certainly doesn’t  _ look _ like it’s on fire,” he muttered to the kid next to him, who was already rejoicing about a missed test next period.    
  
“Please go home quickly and orderly, and be safe. The administration will call your homes with any further schedule changes.” The announcements clicked off and Logan spotted the Sheriff’s bomb sniffing dogs going for the main entrance.    
  
“And Veronica missed all the excitement,” he shook his head. Maybe she already knew what was happening. Wasn’t that her gig?    
  
Kids started dispersing for their cars, and Logan started following until a gasp and a scream stopped him in his tracks.    
  
“Something happened on the trip!” A girl Logan’ couldn’t name cried, reading off her phone. “There was a crash! The bus crashed!” The girl lost her balance, reaching for the friends that gathered around her, and the people swept up in the commotion. “My sister! My sister’s dead!”    
  
Logan heard the shrieks and tried to understand, pushing through the crowd to the girl.    
  
“What do you mean there was a crash?” He elbowed his way to her, helping her to a seat at one of the lunch tables. “What do you mean there was a crash?” Logan tried to focus her sobs.    
  
Another scream rang out a table over, “My dad heard on the radio! They’re all dead!” A boy yelled to the crowd, still on the phone, “The bus went off a cliff, and they’re all gone!”    
  
Blood pumped in Logan’s ears as he was pushed back from the crying girl by a friend who went to hug her. Yelps and panic spread through the courtyard as people shared half-texts and mixed messages.    
  
What had they learned in journalism? That crowd-sourcing information based in terror was basically always unreliable. But Logan still felt himself struggling to breathe. Mindlessly, he pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialed the number as fast as his fingers could.    
  
Even in the crowd, the phone ring was the only thing Logan could hear for what felt like a hundred rings. People pushed past him, but his feet were stuck as he waited for an answer.    
  
“Hi, you’ve reached Veronica Mars-”   
  
“Veronica?” Logan jumped the gun.    
  
“Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you,” her voice promised him, and Logan ran his hand through his hair. With all the times he’d gotten her voicemail, he was amazed he couldn’t recognize it. The beep rang out, and Logan swallowed his silence, unsure of what he should say.    
  
“Just call me back, okay?” He decided, keeping his panic muted, even surrounded by hysteria. “It’s important, alright, please Veronica, be okay and call me back. I love you,” he felt selfish, admitting it over the phone in a voicemail because he was afraid something bad happened. He felt selfish, and stupid, and- his fingers scrolled his contacts, landing in the D’s. This time there was only one ring. “Dick?” Logan couldn’t remember a time he was  _ so _ happy Dick answered his phone.    
  
“Logan… dude. You remember that hill we climbed up to get high while we were high last summer?” Dick sounded off, but Logan couldn’t find the patience to indulge Dick’s wandering story-telling.    
  
“Yeah, I remember, what’s going on, what’s happening?” Swallowing some of his fear, Logan realized that if Dick was okay, then not everyone on the bus had died. The crowd-sourced hysteria really  _ was _ for nothing, and he started walking to his car, feeling a little better.    
  
“The bus just… went off that hill, dude, it just-” Dick sounded dazed, and Logan froze his step again, trying to understand what was happening.    
  
“Dick, what do you mean? Are you okay?” Forcing his feet to move, Logan made it to his car and ignored the way his hand shook bringing the key to the ignition. He was still at least ten minutes from where he and Dick climbed that hill last summer. “Dick, are you alright?” Logan asked again after too many seconds.    
  
“I’m fine, Logan, a bunch of us took a limo back from the field, but we just  _ saw _ it go off the cliff, man, it just went  _ over _ , through the guardrail, into the water, down, man, it just went down. There was fire and screams, and-” Dick stopped talking, and Logan could hear muffled conversation on the other end of the line.    
  
“Hello?” Logan called into the phone, impatiently. “Dick?”   
  
“Logan, man, you should get down here,” Dick cleared his throat, talking back into the phone.    
  
Logan swallowed a snap that he was already driving as fast as he could.    
  
“What’s going on, are people hurt? Is Duncan okay?” Logan listened hard to hear what was being said in the background when Dick wasn’t talking to him. But it was indecipherable. “I’m on the way, Dick, who was in the limo?” He asked the question he was dying to know the answer to; who was on the limo and, “Who was on the bus?” He demanded.    
  
“Look, I’m not doing this on the phone, man,” Dick talked to someone on the other end of the line, raising his voice a little.    
  
“Logan?” Duncan’s voice took over the phone, and Logan breathed a little relief.    
  
“What the hell is going on there, Duncan? I’m one minute away, is everyone okay? Are people hurt?” He asked again, thinking about Veronica’s voicemail.    
  
“People are  _ dead, _ Logan, everyone that was on the bus.” Duncan’s sobs broke through the background noise, and he must have passed the phone back to Dick.    
  
“Veronica was on the bus, dude,” Dick said, finally giving Logan answer.    
  
Logan almost swerved his own car off the road, getting the answer he couldn’t bear. 


	2. Alive

Jumping out of the X-Terra, Logan frantically searched the chaotic scene, for familiar faces or short blondes. A crowd was gathering, and Logan felt his head spinning. 

“Logan!” Dick waved across a group, calling Logan over, but the crowd near the edge of the road caught Logan’s eye first. 

Racing to the edge, he tried to understand what he was seeing, exactly. There were cops everywhere, coast guard skiffs in the water below, and a half-mangled yellow school bus face down in the water, and Logan tried to catch his breath. If he could just get some air, get even one breath… he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the school bus. 

“Logan…” Duncan sniffled from behind him, putting a hand to his shoulder and pulling him back from the guardrail. 

“What the hell happened?” Logan looked into Duncan’s grief-stricken face and felt worse about everything. “Where’s Veronica?” He finally asked, almost in a whisper. Dick and Beaver, Duncan, lots of people Logan didn’t care about surrounded him, but he couldn’t find the one person he was looking for. 

“A bunch’ve us ordered a limo back from the stadium, cause the bus like reeked, dude, I’m telling you, it was nasty-”

Duncan cut Dick off with a shake of his head. 

“It was my fault,” Duncan practically sobbed, “Veronica wanted to talk to Meg about, you know… what happened with us, and… so she got on the bus, with Meg, and…”

The bus was over a cliff, bobbing the water. 

“I’m sorry, Logan,” Dick hung his head, not knowing what else to say. 

“No,” Logan shook his head, disbelief and defiance at the ready, “No, I don’t believe it, she’s not…” his eyes flashed back to the bus, “she’s not, not… down there, okay, you’re wrong, you’re just…” his breath came rapid and shallow; he still felt like he wasn’t getting any air, “you’re just wrong, Veronica can’t be…”

Duncan nodded, solemn. “We won’t know for sure until they… you know, recover everyone.”

Logan winced, his eyes tearing up, betraying him. He didn’t need to cry, to grieve. Because Veronica wasn’t dead, she wasn’t down there, she was going to be just fine and normal and okay. He needed her to be okay. 

Shrugging off Duncan’s consoling arm, he didn’t need consoling, Logan walked closer to the edge, as close as the police tape would allow. He forced himself to look, to really look; to really listen to the screams and sobs around him in the crowd. But Veronica… Girl Wonder, Bobcat, Veronica Mars… she just couldn’t be.

Dialing her phone number again, Logan knew he’d be eternally satisfied just to hear her angry-sigh at him, just to hear her breath. 

Holding for the rings over the phone, Logan edged away from the group a little further, counting the rings; waiting. 

A motorcycle engine came revving behind him, and the last thing Logan wanted was-

“Logan?” Veronica called out as the bike quieted, and Logan spun her way, never so happy to see Weevil Navarro in his whole life. 

Hanging up his phone with a click, Logan felt his feet on the ground again; he felt anchored to real life. He knew. Not Veronica Mars. 

“They all said you were on the bus…” Logan shuffled over to her; her hair a little flat from the helmet, but otherwise she was fine. Perfect. “There was an accident, and they all said you were on the bus,” Logan followed her, as Veronica went to the edge to see for herself, too. “I thought…” placing a hand on the small of her back, Logan wondered if Weevil remembered that morning. But even Eli Weevil Navarro, notorious PCH-er and certified bad-ass stood on the precipice of wreckage at a loss for words. 

“Oh my God,” Veronica choked on a heavy sob. She couldn’t imagine there would be many survivors; she was trying not to ask a million mental questions, but she could see no black brake marks before the guardrail. The bus hadn’t been able to slow down at all. Which meant, the crash might not have even been an accident. She might be looking down at multiple murders. 

“I thought you were dead,” Logan said in a small voice, hand still softly pressed to her back. 

“I got a ride from Weevil,” Veronica looked to him, like that explained everything. 

Logan watched her long lashes blink up at him, almost in slow motion. He knew it was a selfish impulse to even want to kiss her. They’d been friends-turned-enemy a few times over, with a few cycles of confusing love in the mix. Maybe they weren’t even any of that anymore, maybe she was with Duncan and they weren’t anything to each other anymore. But it felt like just her being alive saved him a little bit, too. 

“Veronica! Thank God you’re okay!” Duncan grabbed her, pushing past Logan and breaking the moment like a spell. As Duncan pulled Veronica close, Logan met her eyes over Duncan’s shoulder. 

Maybe they weren’t anything, but at least she was alive. He could breathe, and she was okay, and maybe that was enough for the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> ch 2 is coming soon i'm not going to leave you hanging long! thanks for reading ;)


End file.
